The census upper management was obsessed with race and ethnicity and spent a tremendous amount of effort to have enumerators contacting what they called The hard to enumerate. They were more concerned about getting into the hobo jungles, crack houses and illegal alien hideouts than they were about gaining access to upper class gated communities.

Despite what many people would like to believe people who are settled are fairly easy to count, and most of those in gated communities mailed in their census forms. It is transients that cause the problems, both in over counting and under counting. If the transients do not want contact with government agents (arrest warrants, illegal aliens, etc.) they are likely to be under counted. If the transients are consumers of government services and want contact with government agents (snowbirds, students, etc.), they are likely to be over counted.